› added 5 years ago

83

TIL 10 Downing Street in the 19th Century was guarded by two men who would sit outside the building in leather chairs, armed with a pistol. Each chair featured a drawer filled with hot coals to keep the guards warm, and a sphere-shaped hood to protect from the weather and improve acoustics.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

QbAa TIL that one in ten people in Iceland will publish a book in lifetime. The island nation has “more writers, more books published and more books read, per head, than anywhere else int he world.”
X0g6j TIL that a federal "Witness Tree Protection Program" exists to protect individual trees whose presence was documented at important historical events and are still standing today.
yVY9e TIL that people who have ears that get raw, sore peeling skin when exposed to cold or some soaps/shampoos have "ear eczema", a common condition.
WkjdX TIL an unspayed cat is called a “queen”
e0VnD TIL that the elephant shrew was named simply for it's long nose, but recent genetic evidence has found that it's more closely related to the elephant than it is to the shrew